Ragnarok
After the ice storm yesterday, I was thinking Ragnarok was nigh. But today it is more like Ragnamuck out there. Very muddy.
Actually, Ragnarok will be preceded by a super-long winter called Fimbulvetr, which will last for three years. At the end of Fimbulvetr, the great wolf Skoll will devour the sun while his brother Hati eats the moon. Once that happens, chaos breaks out.
Now let me back up a bit. Skoll might be a big bad star-eating wolf, but the baddest of the wolves is Fenris, the son of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. It was prophesied that Fenris would destroy the world, so the gods decided to lock him up. Only Fenris didn't really want to be locked up, so the gods had to use trickery and deceit. Fenris could break any chains that held him, so the gods commisioned the dwarves to forge a magical chain, which was woven of six seperate threads: the footsteps of a cat, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear (hey!), a woman's beard, a fishies' breath, and a bird's spittle. This chain was called Gleipnir.
The gods were talking smack to Fenris, saying he was too weak to break free from Gleipnir. Fenris accepted the challenge, but since he was no dummy, he demanded that the gods give him a token of goodwill- he wanted one of them to put a hand in his jaw. If there was any trickery he would chomp off the hand. So Tyr, the god of war and the only god who really liked Fenris, agreed. And when Fenris couldn't break free of Gleipnir, he bit off Tyr's hand.
So all of that is to say, that when the earth started shaking after the destruction of the sun and moon, Gleipnir was finally broken and a very-pissed Fenris started fulfilling his destiny. Not only that, but Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, sworn enemy of Thor, starts to make his slow and slimy way to shore, poisoning land and sky with his foul breath as he goes.
The boiling sea frees the ship Naglfar, commanded by the giant Hymir and full of angrygiants. A second ship under the command of Loki sets sail from the underworld, carrying the inhabitants of hell. As if that wasn't bad enough, Surt and the fire giants leave Muspelheim to join the battle. Surt's sword is made of flame and scorches the earth as he walks.
Heimdall sounds his great horn, calling the Aesir to battle. Odin engages Fenris, Thor takes on Jormungand and a hundred other battles all take place. Fenris devours Odin, and Vidar his son kills Fenris, while Thor is victorious against the Midgard Serpent, but suffers a mortal wound which poisons him slowly to death.
Poor old one-handed Tyr fights Garm, the Norse equivalent of Cerebus ( instead of three heads he has four eyes), and they both die.
Then Surt starts flinging fire everywhere from his sword, and everyone dies. Well, two humans live and rebuild afterwards, but who really cares about them?
All this is foretold and the gods each know their fate, yet they eagerly await the day when they can engage the forces of chaos in the final battle.